It costs more to rent an extended-stay hotel room than apartment, study shows
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DeKalb County residents who live in extended-stay hotels are paying more to rent rooms than they would for the average one-bedroom apartment, according to a report compiled by Georgia State University.
Why it matters: The high costs of moving into an apartment or home, coupled with poor credit scores and eviction records, leave families with few options other than expensive extended-stay hotels.
Driving the news: The report, commissioned by DeKalb County and released this month, was conducted by GSU's Center on Health and Homelessness in partnership with the Single Parent Alliance & Resource Center.
What they found: Between September and November, volunteers identified 4,664 people — including 1,635 children — residing in 42 of the 50 extended-stay hotels in DeKalb, said GSU professor Shannon Self-Brown, who co-leads the center.
- Volunteers found residents pay on average $1,852 per month to live at an extended-stay hotel, which is more than the average cost to rent a studio ($1,563) and one-bedroom apartment ($1,629) in DeKalb.
By the numbers: Evictions (35.9%), rent increases (32%), job loss or the inability to find employment (15.2%), family conflicts (13.4%), and domestic violence (8.2%) were the top reasons people moved into extended-stay hotels.
What they're saying: Extended-stay residents are also spending about 77% of their income on rent, said assistant professor April Ballard, who also co-leads the center.
- "And if you have kids, especially, you know that that money is not going to go far," she said. "You could spend that on groceries and still be hungry."
- Self-Brown told Axios that 84% of the people who responded to the survey were single parents working multiple jobs.
State of play: Self-Brown said extended-stay hotel residents aren't classified by the government as homeless, so they do not qualify for federal assistance.
- Additionally, some apartment complexes have strict policies on the number of people who can live in a unit.
- So if a family of four can afford a one-bedroom, but not a two- or three-bedroom unit, they will not be able to lease a unit, Self-Brown told Axios.
- "I think our system is really inflexible in that way, and just not set up for the real kind of structures that families take on," she said.
Zoom out: The plight of people living in extended-stay hotels was detailed last year in the book "There Is No Place For Us: Working and Homeless in America" by Atlanta journalist Brian Goldstone.
- It chronicles five metro Atlanta families who, despite being employed, could not afford to provide a roof over their heads in a city where redevelopment is pricing people out of their neighborhoods.
What we're watching: Self-Brown and Ballard said families living in hotels pay the 8% hotel-motel tax, which generates around $5 million a year in DeKalb County.
- There could be an opportunity to use some of that revenue to help families move out of extended-stay hotels and into affordable homes.